Maria's Monday Memo

Maria's Monday Memo

Senator Maria Cantwell's Weekly Memo

Fighting Identity Theft by Empowering Victims and Law Enforcement

Today I joined King County Sheriff Dave Reichert and victims of identity theft to talk about what I'm doing to fight the nation's fastest-growing crime. I'm proud to report that Congress passed my legislation to empower consumers to reclaim their identity, protect victims' credit histories, and give law enforcement officials the tools they need to fight this crime. My legislation will protect consumers and businesses from the growing threat of identity theft.

My bill, based on Washington state law, provides a consistent national mechanism for a consumer to establish that he or she is a victim of identity theft; and requires businesses to provide relevant documents to ID theft victims to help them clear their records. But my bill also goes beyond Washington law. Now, when police investigate an ID theft, they need a subpoena to obtain documents that document the fraud. I recently heard from police in Vancouver about how this can impede police investigations. My legislation fixes this problem by allowing law enforcement to act as a victim's agent. This will help them get records documenting fraudulent transactions from businesses, making it quicker and more efficient to investigate multiple cases of ID theft, spot patterns, and put the thieves behind bars. A federal law makes sense for businesses, too, since they'll only need to be familiar with the requirements of one law, rather than a jumble of different state laws.

As we begin the holiday shopping season, I strongly encourage all consumers to take steps to protect their personal financial information. That's why I created a web site,